Last night I worked into the wee hours with editor friend Simon Reglar, planning the post production process for 50 Kisses.

Simon is an old pal who worked with me on Urban Ghost Story before pursuing a career as an editor – he is currently wrapping up on Merlin for the BBC after which he will jump ship to edit 50 Kisses. FANTASTIC!

So after our long meeting last night I realised we are looking down the barrel of a super complex feature length movie with so many moving parts it’s crazy.

We will be dealing with filmmakers who are just starting out, alongside filmmakers who have decades of experience… and everyone inbetween. Some filmmakers will be super techy, some will have no clue. But all will need to jump through lots of technical hoops in order that we get what we need, so that we can create the final movie to world class standards.

So… the final stages of post production are about to come home to roost! All those niggles, grading problems, sound problems, music problems, editorial problems… if the filmmakers can’t fix them, we will need to it for them.

We will be post producing the whole film in Avid, and while Avid is a fantastic tool, I suspect no-one has ever done what we are doing, and as such, we will be pushing into hitherto uncharted territory.

It reminds me, rather fearfully, that in post production, you always discover a ton of things you didn’t know that you didn’t know! And then you need to fix them. No putting it off.

It also reminds me that every film is a prototype – every film has a completely unique set of variables. And now that we live in the digital world, those variables have seemingly expanded exponentially. Frame rates, frame sizes, camera codecs, transcode codecs, bit depth, sample rates, editing package choice, export tools, AAF packaging, data transport… all of these problems will need to be overcome BEFORE we can begin the creative process of making the movie. This is some prototype we are building (and I haven’t even begun on the prototype distribution / hybrid distribution).

And so I am now on the hunt for a VERY hungry assistant editor who loves a challenge.

Is that person you, or do you know a someone who would love this challenge? We will be working on Avid from Ealing Studios. This person would helm the technical ‘back-office’ of the production, and no doubt will also be involved in the editorial process too – it will quickly become all hands on deck!

And this is just the beginning! We have LOADS of ideas for how to make this the biggest, most exciting crowd sourced movie ever made!

More to come…

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones
My movies www.LivingSpiritGroup.com
My Facebook www.Facebook.com/ChrisJonesFilmmaker
My Twitter @LivingSpiritPix